Underwater Sculpture

Jason Taylor has recently completed his underwater sculpture project off the coast of Greneda. He has explored the changing environments that sculptures can be placed in, and is now concentrating on perhaps the most changeable environment; the ocean. His sculptures when seen on land are interesting but not attention grabbing, and lack emotion. However when they are seemingly immortalised underwater their eerie prescence really makes these pieces intriguing. Although the Grenadian government obviously has a vested interest in this project, (this can be seen in some of the pieces such as the 'Lost Correspondent') overall the 'installation' is fascinating and can be enjoyed by anyone who can hold their breath for long enough!
Website: www.underwatersculpture.com

Chelsea Flower Show 2007- '600 Days with Bradstone'

Although I didn't manage to get tickets for Chelsea this year I did tune into some of the live coverage from the show. One of the gardens that captured my attention was the Bradstone Show Garden. My initial reason for liking the garden was the large spherical sculpture in one corner. It utalises hexagonal structures to create a shape that reflects structures in nature such as honeycombs. I then realised the concept behind the garden, '600 Days with Bradstone has been inspired by the Millennium and a new era in scientific and design idioms. The garden has been researched for eight years with input from the European Space Agency (ESA), which is researching the psychological effects of spending long periods in space, and the British Science Museum.' (Royal Horticultural Society) I thought that some areas of the garden were overconcerned with replicating Mars's surface and ecosystem, such as the large crator for relaxing and enjoying the planting- slightly unrealistic on Mars or in the average garden. However I was very impressed with how Sarah Eberle the garden designer selected the plants in the garden for their contribution to biomass and the carbon oxygen cycle, and researched into which plants and foods could be grown on Mars.

A fine line between being interested and stalking!

Bliin is a new site said to be threatening the social network sites MySpace, Bibo and Facebook. It was set up in January in the Netherlands and this week has come to Britian. It is based on satellite tracking so that you can track your friends wherever they are in the world on google maps. The only requirement is that you have GPS on your phone or computer. My initial response to this new type of social interaction was that of nervousness, will this mean that everyone will know where I am all the time? Thus meaning I have no privacy. However as with all such sites there are degrees of privacy settings that can be employed. So maybe this is the future, instantly messaging people around the world, sending photos and letting them know where you are all the time.However for the moment I will be sticking to facebook, at least then I can choose to tell people im avoiding them!
Website: http://www.bliin.com/

Dale Chihuly

Chihuly creates amazing sculpture out of glass, he writes so passionatly about each piece that without even seeing his work one can find themself inspired by his enthousiastic nature. The majority of his work has been in America, however the Kew Botanical Gardens is now the home of some of these fabulous sculptures. I remember about two years ago when I first came across Chilhuly, being mesmorised by his orgainic glass structures, they somehow blend into their surroundings whilst standing out at the same time. I watched a documentary about how he makes and transports his work, this alone seems to be a remarkable feat, as few of his pieces are regular shapes that can be packed into boxes! The colours, forms, positioning and even shadows created by Chilhuly are inspiration for all in the art and design world.
Website: http://www.chihuly.com/

Sony apologises over violent video game.

This story on the news was baffling. Sony has based one of its most violent video games, 'Resistance: Fall of Man' in Manchester Cathedral. Against the back drop of a beautiful old Cathedral, aliens invade and have to be quickly gunned down! Im not a religious person however I can see how this would cause an uproar within the Anglican community. Although Sony have "sincerely apologised" they also added that they believed they had "sought all necessary permisions." To me I would asume that anyone within the Church of England community would say that to base such a game in any kind of religious place would be distasteful. But maybe the bigger issue here is whether any setting for a viloent video game is considered to be in good taste.

The Ashmolean

The Ashmolean museam in Oxford really fascinated me, it was unlike any art gallery or museam I had been to before. Initially I thought that it was much like the Natural History Museam in London, with large open rooms containing fossils and stuffed animals. However at the rear of the museam is a large door with huge locks to secure it, as you walk through the door it is like entering a time capsule. There are mazes of glass cases with artifacts from around the world stored inside, some are quite shocking but intriguing, such as the shrunken heads from Ecuador and Peru. All of these rather spooky and unusual pieces add to the unsettling feeling that the museam breathes into its visitors. I truley recommend a visit to this museam, the whole atmosphere is not sterile like some art galleries, allowing you to enter into the feeling of being and intrepid explorer rather than purely the viewer of someone elses discovery.

'I see everything.'

I was initially reluctant to read this book, as my mother teaches children with autism and therefore keeps a stash of 'biography type' books on the subject. Some are narrowly more interesting than others. However this book recieved so much hype when it was published in 2003 that I felt now would be the time to see what the fuss was all about. I began to realise as I read through the fascinating life of Christopher that perhaps we as designers can associate with his 'emotionally dissociated mind' and the struggle to predict the emotions of others. As designers we attempt to go beyond predicting the emotions of a single person to predict the impact of design on the emotions of a population - especially in the case of commercial advertising. Also we often become fixated on a subject wanting to know all about a single subject to develop it futher than others have done before, this is comparable to Christophers knowledge of prime numbers or names of countries. Overall the book was a very entertaining read and shows how everybody views things differently. As designers we are encouraged to think 'outside the box', this book perhaps encourages us to look at things literally first. 'I see everything.' ( pg 174)